Fidelity Asian Values plc (LON:FAS) monthly factsheet for March 2025.
Portfolio Manager Commentary
The Trust’s NAV rose 1.5% during the 12-month period ended 31 March 2025, outperforming its reference index which fell by -3.5%. The Trust’s share price advanced 3.7% over the same period.
Our process is driven by owning good businesses run by management we trust and owning them only when we have ample margin of safety – this often leads us to take contrarian positions as it is easier to find undervalued businesses in countries which are out of favour with investors. Following this philosophy, we have a significant percentage of our portfolio in China and Hong Kong which enhanced relative returns as these markets experienced strong gains. Meanwhile, the overweight exposure to Indonesia compared to the index detracted as small caps saw a sharp fall in share prices. From a sector perspective, selections within information technology and industrials added value. Given this approach, stock selection was the key contributor to the Trust’s relative performance. Of late, investors seem to be rotating out of growth stocks and into value names in the Asian small-cap space. This trend should continue as small-cap value stocks remain at a significant discount to small-cap growth stocks in Asia.
Overall, the Trust was overweight consumer discretionary, financials, consumer staples, and energy. At a country level, it was overweight China, Indonesia, and Australia.
